The Black Serpent
by unknownpleasures
Summary: In 1969, Alastor Moody is tasked with investigating the disappearances of Muggle-borns all across England. Meanwhile, newlyweds Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange set out in search of a wizard who has been said to conquer death, and Mundungus Fletcher finds himself on the run after a black market deal goes horribly wrong. Witness the beginning of the First Wizarding War.
1. Chapter 1

**Moody**

The dead are always talking. We just choose not to listen.

I knew it would be a bad one before I even stepped into the house. The yard was crawling with Magical Law Enforcement Patrol, low-level bureaucrats with an inflated sense of importance who swaggered across the grass and peeked into the windows. I noticed nobody was going inside. The cottage itself was small and quaint in a typically English way, bricks the color of dull copper, a nice little garden lining the front, daisies and petunias and some herbs. The front door, a deep brown mahogany that I guessed was very expensive, had been blown off its hinges and rested on the kitchen floor. Peering through the gap it left, I saw that the insides of the house were in complete disarray. I sighed and lit a Muggle cigarette, doing my best to shield it from the light but relentless drizzle. A few Patrol wizards saw me approaching and nudged one another, muttering under their breath. I'm used to it, at this point.

Goodwin Mortimer caught me before I stepped into the cottage, and wordlessly I passed him a smoke. He gave me the habit, and it's one that a lot of wizards look down upon, but Muggle tobacco is smooth and simple and doesn't blur my thoughts the way pipeweed does. For a moment neither of us spoke, just dragged on our cigarettes and watched the procession of wizards. Every so often someone would apparate a few yards down the street and join the steadily growing crowd, mostly Patrol and Aurors but also Muggle Liaison wizards who'd been sent to deal with the Muggle neighbors. It looked like a circus, everyone talking amongst themselves and wandering aimlessly. Somewhere in the crowd, a camera flashed its blinding whiteness. Goodwin swore under his breath.

"The Prophet is here," he said. "We should get started before this turns into an absolute madhouse."

And so we stepped into the cottage.

I was right—really bad, the kind of murder you hope to go your whole career without seeing. The front door led into a large, cozy sitting room with an open kitchen, and to the right was a hallway, which led to the bedroom and bathroom. On any other day, it would have been a beautiful home. This witch clearly knew how to decorate; the furniture was worn in a friendly way, all antique wood and frayed sofas.

As it were, nearly everything was smashed. The couch had several large slashes through it, exposing its innards. The remains of an armoire were scattered across the sitting room, along with shards of glass from picture frames that had fallen off the walls. Books and knick-knacks in various states of disrepair littered the floor.

The dead are always talking.

This one said _why me_? in a voice so soft and anguished it could have been the wind drifting through the open doorway. Mid-forties, lived alone, had a cat, which we found dead in the bathroom. I imagined her pouring cat food into a small silver dish, imagined her prepping the tea kettle and settling in for the night, perhaps with a novel. A squat, plump, cherub-faced witch with blonde, greying hair that hung around her lifeless face in a phosphorescent halo. I felt my stomach twist into a knot as I imagined her last hours. She'd been tortured viciously; I could tell without even turning over her body. The rage that constantly simmered inside me threatened to boil its way to the surface.

"Gladys Figgins," said Goodwin, thumbing through sheets of parchment. "She was an Unspeakable." He handed me a photograph, from which Gladys smiled sweetly, her face clean and unbroken, eyes still filled with life and kindness.

"Doesn't look the type," I said, handing it back to him and squatting next to her body, which lay face-down and spread eagle in the kitchen. "Do you know what she did there, exactly?"

"You know those Department of Mystery bastards. They never can seem to give me a straight answer." Goodwin gave a little flick of his wand, and his cigarette butt vanished. "What were you doing before you got here?"

"Sending owls, mostly. Jenkins still has her head in a twist over the riots, thinks there'll be more in the coming weeks, and Crouch has been out of the office doing god-knows-what all day. Which somehow leaves me to deal with her."

"Life is cruel, Al," said Goodwin with a smirk

"Don't I know it." I stepped over Gladys, examining the burn marks on the walls, the slashes through the wallpaper. It didn't paint a pleasant picture. "And how long ago did Ms. Figgins shuffle off this mortal coil?"

"Last seen at the office two days ago. Her boyfriend says he received an owl from her less than twelve hours ago but it's not clear who actually wrote it. A Muggle walking his dog saw the doorframe, and you can guess where it went from there."

We didn't stay in the cottage long, just enough to get a feel for the scene and map out a timeline. Whoever it was dragged Gladys Figgins all over her house; the scorches and gouges covered every inch of the place. The noise of the crowd outside grew steadily louder, and the camera flashes became more frequent, each one like the burst of light from a dying star, unbearable in their white-hot intensity. I knew it wouldn't be long until they started trying to come inside, contaminating the crime scene, pressing me for an interview.

You'd think losing an eye would make people avoid you, but Eleanor Prewett, Senior Reporter for the Prophet, has never been more insistent.

And speak of the Devil. A face popped into view in the empty doorframe, belonging to a middle-aged witch with salt and pepper hair tied into a bun so tight it must have been cutting off circulation to her brain. She held a long sheet of parchment, on which she was scribbling furiously. "Just a few questions for you two!" she shouted. Her voice was high and falsely pleasant, like poisoned honey. I glanced at Goodwin, who swore again and disappeared with a sharp _crack_. I followed suit, leaving Eleanor Prewett to advance into the ruined house.

* * *

Barty Crouch's office was a perfect reflection of his personality, full of cold steely greys and dark polished wood, lined with shelves of Defense Against the Dark Arts books. There were only two personal touches: a small, framed photograph of his wife and infant son, which sat on his desk, and a potted plant sitting on a bookshelf that had long since shriveled into itself and died. A collection of plaques hung along the back wall, each one baring some certificate or other, but I got the sense they were only up because they needed to be.

Crouch himself was seated behind his desk, as if he'd been expecting us. He bore the look of a chronic insomniac. His face was deeply lined, his mouth pressed so thin it almost disappeared entirely, and there were dark crescents under his eyes.

"Well," he said. He reached into a desk drawer, pulled out a folder filled with parchment, and handed it to me. I flipped through it reluctantly. Each sheet had two small photographs attached: one, a portrait of a smiling witch or wizard, the other showing their dead body. The scenes looked remarkably similar to Gladys Figgins. "Someone's been having themselves a lovely little Muggleborn killing spree."

"They all Ministry employees?" Goodwin asked, glancing over my shoulder.

Crouch shook his head. "Just Ms. Figgins thus far."

"Why haven't we heard about this before? A serial killer targeting Muggleborns must have the Prophet drooling."

"Most of them were homebodies. Wizards with very few connections. And none of the crime scenes looked anything like the Figgins cottage. They could have been accidents, for all we know. Plus, the Prophet's so wrapped up in the pureblood riots you'd practically have to stick their nose in it." I lit another cigarette, and Crouch scowled at me. "I wish you wouldn't light those damn things in my office, Alastor."

I ignored this. "How do you know they're related, then?"

"The hunch," said Crouch, "of one Albus Dumbledore."

I'd been out of Hogwarts for nearly ten years, and an Auror for six. I remembered Dumbledore well enough, though; he became Headmaster my third year, and had always struck me as a fairly trustworthy wizard, though I never knew him well enough to confirm. The mention of his name surprised me. I assumed he stayed wrapped up in school affairs.

"You've been in touch with Dumbledore?" asked Goodwin.

"More or less." The artificial weather in Crouch's lone office window mirrored the bleak November sky outside, an endless expanse of grey as if a bedsheet had been stretched over the world. In the dim lighting, which grew steadily dimmer thanks to the fake sunset, Crouch looked incredibly old, incredibly tired. "He's concerned it might have something to do with one of his former students. A certain Tom Riddle."

The name didn't ring any bells.

"I want both of you on this. Top priority. The Prophet is going to be all over Figgins, but they don't need to know about the rest quite yet. Send me an owl as soon as you have something." He rose and walked towards his fireplace, carelessly throwing a handful of floo powder into the flames. Without so much as a backward glance, he stepped inside, spun as rapidly as a top, and was gone.

* * *

I lived in a one room flat on the outskirts of London, a rough and tumble type of neighborhood where nobody asked too many questions. Most of the neighbors were Muggles, and I'd see them occasionally as they stepped out for groceries. They kept their heads down, unwilling to look at my face. I couldn't say I blamed them. The only other wizard was Goodwin, who lived in a flat below mine. We spent most of our time together at my place, though, and by the time I managed to leave the office he'd already let himself in and was cooking scrambled eggs on the dingy little range.

I've never thought of myself as gay or straight. It doesn't matter to me one way or another. I'd known Goodwin for three years, when he became an Auror; we'd been together for about five months. Not something we told anyone else at the Ministry, mind you. Luckily, because we were the top Aurors in Crouch's office, spending plenty of time together didn't raise any suspicions. Not that I'd care if they did. Anyone who wanted to say something about it would receive a swift jinx to the face, no questions asked.

We ate dinner mostly in silence. Goodwin, not a particularly good cook, had added far too much pepper to the eggs, and the toast bordered on burned. Still, better than nothing. Afterwards we lay on my stiff mattress, chain smoking and listening to the sounds of London traffic drift in through the open window, turning over the facts of the Figgins case again and again. I tried to imagine who was capable of a thing like that, tried to picture the kind of wizard who got off on inflicting pain to someone purely over their blood status. I'd heard rumors, sure, and the pureblood riots that erupted over the Squib Rights protests this past year were a reminder to any Muggleborns that there was plenty of resentment hanging about. Still, wizards with an aptitude for torture didn't come around very often. That was one of the most surprising things I'd learned in Auror training: very few used magic as maliciously as you'd think.

But there were some.

And that was the problem.


	2. Chapter 2

**Bellatrix**

They left three days after the wedding, on a morning so still and silent that she felt as though a single motion would shatter it, that as she and Rodolphus stepped out into her mother's back garden chaos would erupt all around them. She would have welcomed it. Just months out of Hogwarts, she felt herself growing bored with the world, with her husband, with her parents who touted their pureblood heritage but refused to go any further.

Rodolphus's father was different. Though she'd met him only twice, she sensed right away his aptitude for the Dark Arts. It oozed off of him, gave him an aura of power. It was why she eventually consented to the marriage, after months of Rodolphus's proposals and her family's pleading. She had hoped that her new husband would bear some of the same strength. In this, she had been disappointed.

It was a perfunctory marriage, a tying together of pureblood lineages. As wizard blood became more and more polluted with each passing day, the number of potential suitors dwindled. Rodolphus was selected for her because his family had plenty of money, and because his mother and Bellatrix's mother were old school friends. The ceremony itself was brief and absent of any fanfare. Bellatrix's thoughts were set entirely on her plan, on the journey ahead. She knew her mother would be disappointed. Druella expected a house full of grandchildren, a cushy Ministry job for Rodolphus and a stay-at-home life for Bellatrix. But Bella detested children, knew she wanted none. The memory of her sisters in their infancy made her shudder. The idea that she'd ever been that weak, that helpless, was repulsive. She did not want a child growing inside of her.

What she wanted, more than anything, was to master the Dark Arts.

So she left, with Rodolphus in tow, in search of her father-in-law. Rodolphus hadn't seen him in several months, and both owls he'd sent had gone unreturned. That left them with the small morsels of information Fyodor Lestrange had dolled out over the years. Mentions of someone who had mastered the Dark Arts, who had conquered not only their spells and intricacies but had through them conquered death. It was said he would never die. It was said he could burrow his way into your mind and read through your thoughts as though they'd been written on parchment. That he was the most powerful wizard of their time, of any time.

At night she lay awake and tried to imagine how a wizard like that would look. Rodolphus was plain faced and weak chinned, with a smattering of acne scars and a tall, lanky body. She found him dull, lifeless, and far too eager to please. As he snored loudly in the bed beside her, she imagined marrying this all-powerful wizard, the one they called the Dark Lord. Imagined that she too would be given the keys to eternal life, that together they would never die. They could purify the wizard bloodline and eliminate all the Mudblood trash that managed to sneak its way in. She would be honored above all others; she would have power like few before her.

The sun had just begun to peak over the edge of the horizon as Bellatrix and Rodolphus walked into the massive yard. Unlike her aunt and uncle, who lived in a cramped and miserable house in the middle of London, Bella's family elected to build a sprawling mansion in the English countryside. Even with her parents, two sisters, and husband, there was plenty of room in the house; its various rooms spread out across the entirety of the property with no sense of organization. As a child, Bella frequently found herself lost in some long-empty corridor that had once housed a distant relative. Rather than panic, she found she savored these moments, a chance to escape her screaming baby sister or the constant needling of her parents to meet a nice pureblood boy at Hogwarts.

They were heading towards Albania, the last place Rodolphus had received a letter from his father and, she believed, the place where the Dark Lord resided. It was too long a journey to apparate directly, and she insisted on avoiding brooms, in case her mother had the crazy idea to try and follow them. Instead they were apparating to a house belonging to a friend of Rodolphus's father, who had an unregistered Floo fireplace from which they could leave the country.

Years later, as she lay in her cell in Azkaban, the memory of that morning came back to her as vivid and bright as if she were living it over again. She remembered the crisp, cold air, which smelled of manure and cut grass; the way Rodolphus's hand shook as she gripped it, tightening up her chest and preparing to apparate to Mulciber's house. Up until that morning, her life had followed a relatively normal path, same as her schoolmates in Hogwarts. But now she had, at long last, reached the point from which she would diverge from them. Soon they would recognize her; they would see the hunger that gnawed at her insides in every waking moment.

With a dull _crack_ , the two of them vanished. A flock of birds shot into flight just beyond the horizon.


	3. Chapter 3

**Mundungus**

I knew something was off when Mulciber showed up looking like it was Christmas morning. He was a right piece of work, that one. Looked like an ape, all hairy and stocky, but spoke like a salesman. Real oily bloke. Made the hairs on my neck stand up. Today he showed up with a twinkle in his eye and this awful smile on his face like he was a shark, all teeth. Moira stood next to me, hips cocked and unaware of the change in the air, which was now almost electric. As he walked towards us I knew we had to run right there and then or we were almost certainly dead. My legs were shaking. Run, move, forget this, forget the others, just get yourself out of here, I kept saying to myself, but instead I stared at Mulciber and tightened my grip on my wand.

"Evening, Fletcher," he said.

"Right," I replied. "I notice you forgot the cauldrons."

"Mmm, no, I wouldn't quite say _forgot_." Two more men stepped out from the shadows, both of them wearing strange silver masks that looked like skulls. Like I was staring at my own corpse. "I asked around about you, Fletcher. Seems like you've got quite the reputation."

I ran through the likely snitches in my head. The list was not short. We had a good thing going, Moira and I, but we tended to burn bridges rather fast.

"It seems to me that you had some bizarre notion of taking both our caldrons _and_ our money," Mulciber continued. The men were now on either side of him, blocking our way forward. I saw Moira's hand tremble as she held out her wand, though her face was resolute.

"Not so," I said, doing my best to keep my voice strong. "We're honest men doing honest work."

As big a lie as you'd ever hear. Moira and I have been ripping off blokes in Knockturn Alley ever since we left Hogwarts.

Wish I could go back and change her mind. Wish I had stayed in bed with her this morning, staring at her beautiful face, running my fingers through her curls of blonde hair that shook when she laughed. We could have poured each other another cup of coffee, smoked pipeweed, and watched the precession of wizards down Diagon Alley.

Instead we were standing in a back alley, wands drawn, holding our breath.

"If there's one thing I can't stand," said Mulciber silkily, "it's being lied to. Why don't you just fess up your scheme, Fletcher? Maybe you'll walk out of here in one piece."

Moira glanced at me. I saw the fear in her eyes. She knew we were in a tight spot. I felt as though my legs might give out at any second.

"Well now—"

I'd barely opened my mouth before the spell exploded towards me. I ducked just in time, and it blew a gaping hole in the brick.

I heard Moira shout "Run!" as though my feet weren't already slipping and sliding on the slick cobblestone underneath me, saw more flashes of green and red light slam into the walls around us, kicking up a storm of dust and debris. I sent a stunning spell towards Mulciber, who blocked it with a lazy flick of his wand.

" _Avada keda—_ "

" _Reducto!"_

Moira's spell landed right at Mulciber's feet, blasting him into the air. Between the smoke and dust I could barely see the way forward. Still I sprinted ahead, turning back every so often to send a curse. I should have joined the dueling club, I thought madly, ducking around a corner.

They were shooting to kill. I'd landed the only two people in the world I gave a damn about in this mess and those turds were ready to kill us.

Shoulda known something was wrong from the word "go." I met Mulciber in a pub off Knockturn called The Sleeping Dragon, the kinda place you only went if you have something to prove. Everyone there talks tough and drinks to match. Stop by in the late evening, after everyone's had a few too many, and you'll find plenty of marks. Drunk morons with money ripe for the taking. It was a system we'd tried and tested across England. Mulciber was sober, though. I could tell he wanted me to think him drunk. Truth be told I had a couple pints myself, so when he mentioned a stash of cauldrons he wanted to unload, I couldn't resist.

I couldn't. But I shoulda.

Vomit rose in my throat. My chest ached. I could feel blood running down my face. I'd sprinted far away from the meeting place, and the silence around me was absolute. Nobody behind me. I sank down against a wall, breathing heavy, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps, trying to guess where Moira had run off. She was bright, that one, but not so good at thinking quick.

The night was cold and windy. Rain slapped at my face. I thought about disapparating back to my flat, locking the door, waiting for the others. But I knew if I left I'd never see them again.

I set off along the back alleys and pathways of Knockturn, behind cramped grey shops dotted with garbage and the occasional sleeping man, bundled up in his cloak and almost indistinguishable from the muddy ground. Though the true Knockturn Alley is much smaller than Diagon, there's a whole sprawl of it that nobody visits, a series of shacks and shanties that look abandoned, small cobblestone houses that look like they've survived several hurricanes. I'd slept under a tarp here many nights, though it was always by choice. The wizards who lived in the houses were sour, suspicious people, but they knew wherever to find whatever—or whoever—you were looking for. The bums didn't talk to you unless you had a Knut or two to throw them; they kept their noses clean. I walked for almost ten minutes, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, preparing to disapparate—

Moira's scream ripped through the night. A homeless wizard sat bolt upright, looked around, and took off running.

She was backed against the wall, Mulciber towering over her, showing his teeth in a cross between a smile and a grimace. Moira was shaking. A long gash ran along her arms, ripping her robes and exposing blood, muscle, tendon. Her hair lay flat on her face. It seemed impossible that she was the same woman who'd made me tea this morning, who'd giggled and daydreamed when we talked about how we'd spend the money. A nice restaurant. A case of firewhiskey.

Mulciber turned as I approached.

"Well," he said, "how convenient." He raised his wand.

His curse missed me by centimeters. I swear I could feel it sucking the life out of me. But if my father taught me anything, it was how to make an escape. Before he could fire off another, I spun around on the spot, reappearing in an alley near The Leaky Cauldron.

Nearby, I could hear the bustle of people as they walked past. Even in the rain, there was enough of a crowd to disappear in. But I found I couldn't move, didn't want to move. I wanted to lay down against the stone wall and fall asleep and wake up back at home, in my bed, next to Moira.

It was dawning on me what I'd done by leaving her with Mulciber. In the split second before I'd disapparated her eyes, green and startlingly clear, had found mine. They were wide in horror as her last hope, the only chance she'd had of making it out alive, had vanished. And I'd barely given her a second thought. My only instinct was to save my own hide. Years and years together and I walked out on her without a second thought.

My breathing slowed. I punched the wall as hard as I could. All that did for me was to scrape most of the skin off my knuckles. I was still shaking, still replaying that moment over and over.

But I also had to be practical.

Those men would be looking for me. You don't piss off a thug like Mulciber and walk away. He'd sniff out every nook and cranny of London, and when he found me, he'd carve me up like a roasted chicken. He had the look of a true psycho, the kind of person who set rats on fire in his backyard when he was a lad.

I had maybe an hour before they found my flat. After that I was well and truly screwed. All my money, my food, everything I owned, would be forfeit. I had to get moving, pack everything, head out to God knows where. Maybe China. Or I could become a monk in Tibet. Would they have me? I'd never met a Tibetan wizard.

The trouble was, I couldn't move. My limbs weighed thousands of pounds. My wand, which lay on the ground next to me, seemed out of reach forever. I felt like an entire lifetime had gone by in the past twenty minutes.

By now the rain had mostly stopped, though the sky remained grey and lifeless. I didn't bother looking up when I heard footsteps approach. Whatever happened would happen. It was only when the figure extended a hand down to me that I bothered to check who it was, and my mouth fell open as I looked into the face of one Albus Dumbledore.


End file.
